follow me on:

Let's Talk About Birthdays

The summer’s been sweet, but it’s coming to a close. We’ve coasted into SEPTEMBER on the back of a solar eclipse (oh, is no one talking about that anymore? My bad). And with September comes a beautiful collection of cusp-of-autumn birthdays. What does it mean to be born in September?…

Birthdays are like belly buttons: everyone’s got one. Most of us have celebrated our share of ‘em, too. But where does the idea of a birthday come from, anyway? When and where was the birthday invented? Are birthdays a modern celebration, or did Paleolithic people throw the ancient equivalent to…

Everyone’s got a birthday. It’s the one day out of the year that’s all about you. Whether you celebrate it with cake at home or with G&Ts on the town, it’s a day that’s different from the other 364. Have you ever stopped to consider how strange that is? Our…

AUGUST is upon us, and with it a whole host of birthdays. Yes: this is actually the most popular month to be born in the US, and one of the most popular in the UK as well. The dead of winter’s just nine months prior to August, so I’ll let…

Being far away from people you love is hard. Being far away when it’s someone’s birthday is even harder. How do you properly celebrate someone’s continued existence in this world when you’re too far away to give them a hug? Why are long-distance birthdays so hard? Long-distance relationships are difficult…

JULY is June’s even hotter, even stickier twin. The solstice has come and gone, and we really are in the thick of it now. Welcome to summer in earnest. What does it mean to be born in July? Are summertime babies different from the rest of us? What kind of…

Ahh, JUNE. The boundary between spring and summer, where the possibilities of the warm months ahead hang ripe like juicy red cherries. What does it mean to be born in June? What are people with June birthdays like? What effect does celebrating your birthday in June every year have upon…

If it’s your birthday, perhaps you’re sharing it with a sibling. Twins: beloved by film-makers to add a hint of weird, and similarly intriguing to just about everybody else. Turns out, twins are a smidge more common than I thought before researching this article. The incidence of twins is around…

I turn 30 this coming year. In preparation for the big event next February, I’ve started by looking back. Some birthdays are more important than others, after all, and the last big one for me was 21. And it seems that, following a rather dignified 21st, my birthdays have gotten…